By Daniel Butler, Director and Shaun Backhaus, Lawyer DBA Lawyers Introduction While DBA is recognised as Australia’s leading SMSF law firm, it is also well known for it’s great depth of tax and trusts expertise. In particular, DBA Lawyers offers an excellent discretionary trust deed that is easy to read, provides great flexibility and reflects [read more]
Daniel Butler, Director and Bryce Figot, Special Counsel, DBA Lawyers Payments above the account-based pension (‘ABP’) minimum annual payment have the potential to become a trap. The June 2017 SMSF Benchmark Report by Class Super states that ‘the average SMSF pensioner withdraws about $74,000 annually on their pension over a series of 12 transactions and [read more]
By Daniel Butler, Director, DBA Lawyers, and William Fettes, Senior Associate, DBA Lawyers Introduction A self managed superannuation fund (‘SMSF’) is a type of trust that, like all trusts, is ‘run’ by its trustee. Case law tells us that one of the most fundamental duties of a trustee is that they obey the rules of [read more]
William Fettes, Senior Associate, Daniel Butler, Director, DBA Lawyers The new rules that govern when a transition to retirement income stream (‘TRIS’) enters retirement phase give rise to a number of complex issues in the context of reversionary nominations and death. This article examines the retirement phase rules and reversionary TRISs in detail, based on [read more]
William Fettes, Senior Associate, Bryce Figot, Special Counsel, DBA Lawyers Disclaimer: DBA Lawyers provided advice to one of the parties in Cantor Management Services Pty Ltd v Booth. We only mention facts made publicly available in the judgement. The recent decision of Cantor Management Services Pty Ltd v Booth [2017] SASCFC 122 provides important guidance [read more]
By Shaun Backhaus ([email protected]), Lawyer and Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director DBA Lawyers Background Foreign purchaser additional duty (‘FPAD’) was introduced in Victoria from 1 July 2015 which adds an extra 7% land transfer duty on residential property purchases in Victoria if there is a foreign beneficiary of your discretionary or family trust (s 28A Duties [read more]
Daniel Butler, Director, DBA Lawyers This article examines the query of whether having a second or, indeed even more than two, self managed superannuation funds (‘SMSFs’) would give rise to a Part IVA (of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) (‘ITAA36’)) risk. Please note that this article is not intended to be a technical [read more]
Daniel Butler, Director and William Fettes, Senior Associate, DBA Lawyers The tax treatment of death benefits paid from an SMSF to a deceased member’s estate can be complex. Tax law contains a ‘look through’ provision in respect of death benefits paid to an estate (ie, to a legal personal representative being the executor of a [read more]
Daniel Butler, Director, DBA Lawyers The transition to retirement income stream (‘TRIS’) entered a new era on 1 July 2017 where most members will want their TRIS to enter retirement phase as soon as possible to gain access to an earnings tax exemption. A new law has provided a roadmap for this TRIS reclassification, but [read more]
Daniel Butler ([email protected]), Director, DBA Lawyers There are many myths held regarding what happens to an individual’s self managed superannuation fund (‘SMSF’) when they pass away. Relying on these myths may lead to several undesirable outcomes such as: the wrong people receiving the intended proportion of SMSF assets or superannuation; the wrong people being left [read more]
